Trevino Brings Plenty: Music
How to be an Indian male in the early 21st century
(~poetry~)
Recorded live 03.17.05 on KBOO 90.7FM, Portland, Oregon.
You must be birthed from an Indian mother
She must be in her teens
She must come from an alcoholic linage
And you must say this is so
You will never meet your father
You will grow uncertain about your manhood
You will be angry
This must be so
You will sit in a cafeteria
Greasy fries and cheeseburger before you
You will know all these people
Are all different ideas
All these people will never leave
A bearded white man sitting 20 feet away
Will look you over
He will wonder at your cheekbones
Your long hair in a ponytail
Your dark brown skin
He will want to ask what tribe you are
He will feel sorry for you
And your people's history
He will imagine you half naked
Like what he saw on T.V. last night
And what he has read in his large
Western novel collection
He will hate you
Because you don't fit his model
You will see this bearded white man
You know he is watching you
You will imagine him in the same
Period clothes as he was with you
You will feel sorry for him
You will sip your water in a clear plastic cup
You will imagine the bearded white man
Wearing buckled shoes, tan nylons, knickers, puffy shirt,
Vest, topcoat, and a large brim hat
You will wonder when his glory days
Ever began, you know he smells foul
The white man has maybe bathed once a year
This was the strange custom of white people
You will start to mimic the way he is eating
And sound out the strange nuances of his language
It will anger you when you look around
The cafeteria and see mostly white people
The white woman 5 feet away wearing a yellow dress
Dipping bread into her soup
She will see you
She will want to take home a dark man
She will hate you
Because her husband is white
Her life is easy
It has to be
She has two white children
She will leave this family
She will use you
She will break your heart
But she doesn't do this to hurt you
She does this to leave her unhappy marriage
You see this white woman in a yellow dress
Her wedding ring is very expensive
You imagine her wearing a low cut red dress
You imagine her leaving her family
She must be unhappy with her life
You know she is watching you
You know you must end her marriage
You will be in your late thirties
The anger you had all your life
Will eat you alive
You will drink heavily
You will not care
When your mother calls long distance
You will let your answering machine pick her up
You will die from a fatal injury
You will be a dead Indian male in the ground
All the noise you had in your head
Will finally be silenced